6 ms·

Harvard Study: Planetary Health Index Diet – lower mortality and 30% lower CO2

23 points by thyselius 2y ago

thunkle 2y ago
The diet: > The food-based reference diet for generally healthy individuals aged ≥2 y emphasizes high consumption of high-quality plant-based foods (e.g., whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, and unsaturated plant oils), low to moderate amounts of animal-sourced foods, and low intakes of saturated fats, refined grains, and sugar.
- cj 2y ago
  The only way I’ve found (that works for me) is avoiding regular grocery stores at all costs and only shopping at health food stores. The same stores will have more brands of granola than they do brands of regular cereal. They most often don’t carry things like Oreos, and many won’t carry nation-wide brands at all. (You won’t find Heinz ketchup, for instance) I find it extremely difficult to shop healthy at regular grocery stores where 90%+ of the items stocked are heavily manufactured and processed. The downside to health food grocery stores is they’re out of reach for anyone other than upper class income since the food prices tend to be… insane. Edit: insane as in the same can of soup at a health food store can easily be $6 while costing $3 at a regular grocery store for the same exact product.
  - ds_opseeker 2y ago
    > the same can of soup at a health food store can easily be $6 while costing $3 at a regular grocery yes, maybe because the regular store can buy in much higher volume, and will have faster turnover of stock?
  - mupuff1234 2y ago
    Where are you located? Most grocery stores probably have at least frozen veggies and fruit and I assume some selection of fish/meat. And btw granola really isn't that healthy.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    You can find real food at any grocery store. You just have to keep walking past the froot loops. You can buy a bag of lentils, some onions and carrots, some potatoes, some oranges anywhere.
    - cj 2y ago
      I think the problem is I don’t have the self-control to just keep walking past those things!
  - Jtsummers 2y ago
    My "trick" at regular grocery stores is to stick primarily to the perimeter: produce, dairy, meat. The only aisles I regularly go down are for spices, grains of some sort (typically rice), beans, and stocks (too lazy to make my own). I've never had to bother with health food stores, though I guess it has the benefit of removing temptation. Whenever I've visited one, the prices made no sense to me for the things they were selling. A better option to remove the temptation is some of the smaller grocery chains (Sprouts, Fresh Market). They have reliably had good produce and meat at reasonable prices (Fresh Market's meat and produce prices, when I lived near them, were reliably better than Kroger and Publix with better quality). Bulk items are a bit difficulty, Fresh Market sold rice at a terrible price so I'd still hit Kroger for that (the local one to me at the time had produce practically rotting on the shelf, spoiled by the next day if I ever bought any, but rice and dry beans are hard to screw up). Sprouts' rice and beans and lentils are priced reasonably, a bit high but not bad. But the canned goods, chips, and other things at both of them are priced at twice what the regular groceries sell them for, and about 4x (or more) what Walmart has for the same items. Easy to walk past them and not spend that money.
lumb63 2y ago
Almost any diet that contains mostly real food rather than artificial food-like substances will produce substantial improvements in health. Contents are hugely secondary to actually consuming real food.
- Jensson 2y ago
  Only when factories focus on making addictive instead of healthy food. You can ruin the food yourself in the same way. Different cultures do this differently, so you see much healthier fast food packages in some countries than others.
  - manmal 2y ago
    Food isn’t all about macros, you need to get your micronutrients (minerals etc), which heavy processing partially removes. There’s also the rabbit hole of soil quality, where a plant can only contain the nutrients its soil has offered (copper, molybdenum, humic acid etc), where organic food tends to be better because soil health is actually looked at.
    - Jensson 2y ago
      > which heavy processing partially removes Only because they don't focus on micronutrients. > where organic food tends to be better because soil health is actually looked at. You don't think large scale farmers look at soil health? Every single large scale farmer knows about soil health.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    Since we have food production mostly figured out and we don't need any new production optimizations do we really need food production to remain the domain of free market? Maybe governments should set up production of healthy convenient packaged food and give it away for free. Then gradually ban businesses from selling the worst products.
    - nradov 2y ago
Phiwise_ 2y ago
>Methods >We followed 66,692 females from the Nurses’ Health Study (1986–2019), 92,438 females from the Nurses’ Health Study II (1989–2019), and 47,274 males from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986–2018) who were free of cancer, diabetes, and major cardiovascular diseases at baseline. The PHDI was calculated every 4 y using a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Into the roundfile it goes!
blablabla123 2y ago
> Agriculture and food production are responsible for ∼30% of greenhouse gas The title seems a bit misleading
hifromwork 2y ago
It looks like they asked (a large number of) participants what they eat, and checked a correlation between their health and how closely they follow their Planetary Health Diet[1]. First, I don't see any attempt to control for the fact that people who eat "healthy" diets (vegetarian, vegan, avoid sugars and red meat, etc) are often the same people who care about exercise, do routine health checks etc. So even if the diet itself was a placebo, this mere correlation would show results as if it's helpful. Second, It's already a known fact that avoiding too much red meat and sugar is good for you, so it's not surprising that a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet has health benefits compared to the average. I guess this study shows that this diet, which was designed for planet health, is also good for human health? It's a noble goal, but most people - maybe selfishly - primarily care about their own health. It would be interesting to quantify how much worse for health this diet is compared to a diet optimised for human health[2]. I also don't get the 30% lower CO2 part. Is it about CO2 generated by growing food/raising livestock? One doesn't need a study to know that eating mostly plants generates less CO2. Disclaimer: I don't have access to the full paper so I've only studied the available abstract. [1] Mostly vegan with some animal protein: https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-health-diet-and-you/ https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-hea... [2] Ideally it is (within an experimental error) as good as the "optimal" human diet, but it would be nice to hear that explicitly.
- xenonite 2y ago
  About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. It may well be the other way around. For example: the humus layer is much deeper with grass, hence storing more CO2. About your second point, you name it as "fact" that too much red meat is problematic. Scientists are not so sure if it is about the meat or about some side-effect, like e.g., a virus transmitted along with (rare/raw, or even higher heated) meat in Western societies. Reference: https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.27413 https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.27413
  - piva00 2y ago
    > About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. Thermodynamics by itself would already question this assertion, no?
richie-guix 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- azan_ 2y ago
  I guess you meant methane - nothing happened to it, it's still a problem
- GrantMoyer 2y ago
  The environmental issue with raising livestock isn't that they fart. It's that they convert energy from plants to energy stored in their flesh with low efficiency, so to raise livestock, humans need to grow more plants — and use more resources — to feed the livestock than they would need to grow if the humans ate the plants directly. I find that people concerned with animals rights tend to emphasize ethical arguments over (valid) environmental arguments, while those emphasizing the environmental arguments are genuinely concerned with the environmental cost of animal agriculture. In other words, most people making environmental arguments against animal agriculture are not trying to trick you.
  - richie-guix 2y ago
    You are clearly discussing this in good faith, thank you. > In other words, most people making environmental arguments against animal agriculture are not trying to trick you. Sadly ven diagram of animal rights advocates, clueless do gooders and environmentalists overlaps greatly. Bad faith arguments emerge not only by extremists but also by people eager to be part of the movement with no capacity for independent thought. These things take root and become "common knowledge" within the communities. They don't need to be actively trying to trick me to muddy the waters with their own, however well intentioned, confusion. We are still dealing with metaphysical arguments - note you didn't provide any numbers or scale or externalities or consideration towards second order effects or unintended consequences. I can give a contrived example in the other direction (as its easier to recognize the obvious flaws): Cars bad. Bicycles good. Clearly. Bike lane therefore must be good. Now you get a dozen guys in spandex burning extra calories and compensating by consuming far more burgers than they otherwise would have. And far worse traffic idling their engines at less efficent stop-and-go low speeds for longer. What was actually accomplished in terms of CO2? We should ban all bicycles instead.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

23 points by thyselius 2y ago

The diet: > The food-based reference diet for generally healthy individuals aged ≥2 y emphasizes high consumption of high-quality plant-based foods (e.g., whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes, and unsaturated plant oils), low to moderate amounts of animal-sourced foods, and low intakes of saturated fats, refined grains, and sugar.

cj 2y ago
The only way I’ve found (that works for me) is avoiding regular grocery stores at all costs and only shopping at health food stores. The same stores will have more brands of granola than they do brands of regular cereal. They most often don’t carry things like Oreos, and many won’t carry nation-wide brands at all. (You won’t find Heinz ketchup, for instance) I find it extremely difficult to shop healthy at regular grocery stores where 90%+ of the items stocked are heavily manufactured and processed. The downside to health food grocery stores is they’re out of reach for anyone other than upper class income since the food prices tend to be… insane. Edit: insane as in the same can of soup at a health food store can easily be $6 while costing $3 at a regular grocery store for the same exact product.
- ds_opseeker 2y ago
  > the same can of soup at a health food store can easily be $6 while costing $3 at a regular grocery yes, maybe because the regular store can buy in much higher volume, and will have faster turnover of stock?
- mupuff1234 2y ago
  Where are you located? Most grocery stores probably have at least frozen veggies and fruit and I assume some selection of fish/meat. And btw granola really isn't that healthy.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  You can find real food at any grocery store. You just have to keep walking past the froot loops. You can buy a bag of lentils, some onions and carrots, some potatoes, some oranges anywhere.
  - cj 2y ago
    I think the problem is I don’t have the self-control to just keep walking past those things!
- Jtsummers 2y ago
  My "trick" at regular grocery stores is to stick primarily to the perimeter: produce, dairy, meat. The only aisles I regularly go down are for spices, grains of some sort (typically rice), beans, and stocks (too lazy to make my own). I've never had to bother with health food stores, though I guess it has the benefit of removing temptation. Whenever I've visited one, the prices made no sense to me for the things they were selling. A better option to remove the temptation is some of the smaller grocery chains (Sprouts, Fresh Market). They have reliably had good produce and meat at reasonable prices (Fresh Market's meat and produce prices, when I lived near them, were reliably better than Kroger and Publix with better quality). Bulk items are a bit difficulty, Fresh Market sold rice at a terrible price so I'd still hit Kroger for that (the local one to me at the time had produce practically rotting on the shelf, spoiled by the next day if I ever bought any, but rice and dry beans are hard to screw up). Sprouts' rice and beans and lentils are priced reasonably, a bit high but not bad. But the canned goods, chips, and other things at both of them are priced at twice what the regular groceries sell them for, and about 4x (or more) what Walmart has for the same items. Easy to walk past them and not spend that money.

lumb63 2y ago

Almost any diet that contains mostly real food rather than artificial food-like substances will produce substantial improvements in health. Contents are hugely secondary to actually consuming real food.

Jensson 2y ago
Only when factories focus on making addictive instead of healthy food. You can ruin the food yourself in the same way. Different cultures do this differently, so you see much healthier fast food packages in some countries than others.
- manmal 2y ago
  Food isn’t all about macros, you need to get your micronutrients (minerals etc), which heavy processing partially removes. There’s also the rabbit hole of soil quality, where a plant can only contain the nutrients its soil has offered (copper, molybdenum, humic acid etc), where organic food tends to be better because soil health is actually looked at.
  - Jensson 2y ago
    > which heavy processing partially removes Only because they don't focus on micronutrients. > where organic food tends to be better because soil health is actually looked at. You don't think large scale farmers look at soil health? Every single large scale farmer knows about soil health.
- scotty79 2y ago
  Since we have food production mostly figured out and we don't need any new production optimizations do we really need food production to remain the domain of free market? Maybe governments should set up production of healthy convenient packaged food and give it away for free. Then gradually ban businesses from selling the worst products.
  - nradov 2y ago

Phiwise_ 2y ago

>Methods >We followed 66,692 females from the Nurses’ Health Study (1986–2019), 92,438 females from the Nurses’ Health Study II (1989–2019), and 47,274 males from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986–2018) who were free of cancer, diabetes, and major cardiovascular diseases at baseline. The PHDI was calculated every 4 y using a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. Into the roundfile it goes!

blablabla123 2y ago

> Agriculture and food production are responsible for ∼30% of greenhouse gas The title seems a bit misleading

hifromwork 2y ago

It looks like they asked (a large number of) participants what they eat, and checked a correlation between their health and how closely they follow their Planetary Health Diet[1]. First, I don't see any attempt to control for the fact that people who eat "healthy" diets (vegetarian, vegan, avoid sugars and red meat, etc) are often the same people who care about exercise, do routine health checks etc. So even if the diet itself was a placebo, this mere correlation would show results as if it's helpful. Second, It's already a known fact that avoiding too much red meat and sugar is good for you, so it's not surprising that a mostly vegetarian/vegan diet has health benefits compared to the average. I guess this study shows that this diet, which was designed for planet health, is also good for human health? It's a noble goal, but most people - maybe selfishly - primarily care about their own health. It would be interesting to quantify how much worse for health this diet is compared to a diet optimised for human health[2]. I also don't get the 30% lower CO2 part. Is it about CO2 generated by growing food/raising livestock? One doesn't need a study to know that eating mostly plants generates less CO2. Disclaimer: I don't have access to the full paper so I've only studied the available abstract. [1] Mostly vegan with some animal protein: https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-health-diet-and-you/ https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-hea... [2] Ideally it is (within an experimental error) as good as the "optimal" human diet, but it would be nice to hear that explicitly.

xenonite 2y ago
About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. It may well be the other way around. For example: the humus layer is much deeper with grass, hence storing more CO2. About your second point, you name it as "fact" that too much red meat is problematic. Scientists are not so sure if it is about the meat or about some side-effect, like e.g., a virus transmitted along with (rare/raw, or even higher heated) meat in Western societies. Reference: https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.27413 https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.27413
- piva00 2y ago
  > About your third point: raising animals on pastures is not necessarily worse regards climate compared to growing vegetables on fields. Thermodynamics by itself would already question this assertion, no?

richie-guix 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
azan_ 2y ago
I guess you meant methane - nothing happened to it, it's still a problem
GrantMoyer 2y ago
The environmental issue with raising livestock isn't that they fart. It's that they convert energy from plants to energy stored in their flesh with low efficiency, so to raise livestock, humans need to grow more plants — and use more resources — to feed the livestock than they would need to grow if the humans ate the plants directly. I find that people concerned with animals rights tend to emphasize ethical arguments over (valid) environmental arguments, while those emphasizing the environmental arguments are genuinely concerned with the environmental cost of animal agriculture. In other words, most people making environmental arguments against animal agriculture are not trying to trick you.
- richie-guix 2y ago
  You are clearly discussing this in good faith, thank you. > In other words, most people making environmental arguments against animal agriculture are not trying to trick you. Sadly ven diagram of animal rights advocates, clueless do gooders and environmentalists overlaps greatly. Bad faith arguments emerge not only by extremists but also by people eager to be part of the movement with no capacity for independent thought. These things take root and become "common knowledge" within the communities. They don't need to be actively trying to trick me to muddy the waters with their own, however well intentioned, confusion. We are still dealing with metaphysical arguments - note you didn't provide any numbers or scale or externalities or consideration towards second order effects or unintended consequences. I can give a contrived example in the other direction (as its easier to recognize the obvious flaws): Cars bad. Bicycles good. Clearly. Bike lane therefore must be good. Now you get a dozen guys in spandex burning extra calories and compensating by consuming far more burgers than they otherwise would have. And far worse traffic idling their engines at less efficent stop-and-go low speeds for longer. What was actually accomplished in terms of CO2? We should ban all bicycles instead.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]